Torgo: The Fanfiction Sequel of Fate
by ManWithoutABody
Summary: Finally, a primarily Manos: The Hands of Fate fanfic! A onehanded Torgo makes his escape from the set of Manos, and into fanfiction in general. Other things will probably happen too. Must... not... suck... as bad... as the movie... did...
1. There Is No Way Out of Here

For those of you who have not seen it, _Manos, The Hands of Fate_ is one of the worst movies ever made. It takes every horror movie trope that was already cliche by the fifties, and then, in the sixties, makes a movie out of them. The acting is so bad as to be painful to watch, the production values are miserable, the character of Torgo is meant to be a satyr but he just has puffy knees, and the script is one of the worst things ever set to paper. I've read worse fanfics, but it's pretty close. Due to the film's abysmal run, very few copies exist. Reportedly, Quentin Tarantino owns a copy of the original film, in old-timey reel form. He has described it as the "greatest comedy ever made."

_Manos_ (especially the character of Torgo) has something of a cult following, having been popularized by its use on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The entirety of that episode is currently visible on Youtube, and you may get a bit more out of this story (especially this first chapter, before the crossovers start) if you watch the movie first. Joel, Tom, and Crow make the film surprisingly bearable. Part 1 is right here: ca./watch?vvnGiaS9uOf8.

Of course, I don't own Torgo, or many other characters in here.

* * *

"That lousy son of a bitch," said Torgo, in bizarre, modulating tones. "I liked my hand. I must get out of here. I liked my hand."

All this he said as he ran across the desert, away from the shrine where The Master was doing whatever he was doing right now. With any luck, by now The Master would be busy hunting after the guests. Torgo was attracted to that Margaret woman, but he had just lost his left hand in some fire, and been rolfed halfway to death, and if he tried to save her now, he'd probably lose the other one, or possibly get rolfed _all_ the way to death, which would eventually not be worth it. "Sucks to you, humans," he muttered, as he ran past the window. He could see them running out the door of the house, into the desert. What an awful idea.

Ah, here was their car. An easy escape method. Oh, wait a second. If it were that easy, they would have left in it. Nevertheless, worth a shot. He opened the door, and turned the key, which had been left in the ignition. A bad sign. The grinding sound of the car not driving away was a worse one.

"Not a disaster, not a disaster," he said. "Got to be a reason why the car doesn't work. There is no way out of here. In a few hours, the sun will rise. Not a disaster. Got to be a reason. The Master does not approve of my disobeying him, but The Master approves of very little." He looked around at the dashboard. "Oh, I see. The handbreak is on." After he had corrected that and brought his hoof down on the exhaust, the car was rolling.

How anticlimactic.

Driving down the desert road at night. You know, maybe there _was_ a way out of here. There was a way _in_, after all. Therefore, it was only logical that, once he reached the highway, he could get out of El Paso forever. Go anywhere else, where The Master couldn't find him, although it was unlikely that he would look very hard. But it might be fun, just to, you know, pretend. It can be kind of fun to feel hunted. Otherwise, Hide & Seek would never have been devised.

On the seat next to him were some tickets to stay at something called Valley Lodge. Come to think of it, the humans had asked how to get to Valley Lodge. Maybe he could steal their vacation. That might be a fun way to pretend he was being pursued.

It was tricky steering with just one hand. If Torgo were human, and not a satyr, he could conceivably go to a hospital to get that thing looked at. But he _was_ a satyr, so there was no effing use. He'd just end up in a lab getting dissected, or thrown in a zoo. Or possibly elevated to celebrity status, but it wasn't worth risking. Besides, the fire had fairly soldered the wound shut (what a horrifying word choice) so he could probably stay in this condition a bit longer. He'd need some type of prosthetic hand, maybe a hook, although he looked enough like a pirate already. But then, as long as he kept his trousers on and nobody looked too carefully at his feet, he could easily pass for an ordinary man who just happened to have enormously bloated knees.

Oh, and check this out: he had moved the luggage back into the car, but nobody had moved it out. Going on the run would be a lot more bearable if he had a bunch of clean clothes to wear.

Damn. He had forgotten his staff; the cool one with the hand on top. But then, come to think of it, he had also renounced Manos, so the hand symbolism wasn't really appropriate anyway. Nonetheless, it was a slightly cool staff. Only slightly cool, mind you. He could probably buy a better one in a souvenir shop, but still.

As he drove, he passed a cop car driving about. And there was another car, in which two young people were making out and drinking something from a flask. It looked like they had been doing that for a mad long time, rather than the obvious, and somewhat more sensible option of getting a room and then having lots of rampant sex, where there would be no policemen to deliver convoluted lectures about abstinence and disturbing the peace.

Hey, look. Highway 10. It wasn't so hard to find after all. Oh, and look. There was the sign for Valley Lodge. He'd be stealing vacations in no time. But first, a quick stop regarding that hand thing.


	2. There Is Nothing To Fear, Madam

I sort of own Eulenspiegel.

* * *

"I can clean out the wound for you," said Eulenspiegel, "I can even attach a cap to the stump. But I can't grow you a new hand, I'm afraid."

"That would be fine, good sir." He sat down in the chair, which looked like the sort dentists had in their offices. Eulenspiegel reached for a needle of anaesthetic.

"You will want this," he said in his Dutch accent. Eulenspiegel is an undead Dutchman, by the way. "It will take away the searing pain of me poking around at your wristbones with a pair of tweezers."

The needle stuck into Torgo's arm, and he was out like a bird through a window.

* * *

Flashback.

* * *

Torgo remembered his days in old Paris, before becoming indentured to the Manos cult. Back then, he was a servant working for a French judge named Claude Frollo. This particular flashback started with him sitting, Harry Potter-like, in Frollo's cupboard, and, un-Harry Potter-like, dismembering rabbits with his bare hands, which was his favourite way of unwinding. 

Then there was a knock on the cupboard door. Frollo always knocked first, very kindly, to give Torgo some time to pull his pants up in case he was in there wanking, although Torgo had never wanked, and didn't need to. But Frollo, being the religious chap that he was, decided he didn't want to think about a masturbating satyr and just decided not to address the issue at all.

"What is it, Judge?" said Torgo, opening the door, and managing not to slip in all the rabbit intestines. "I am ready to do your bidding."

Frollo looked down his nose at Torgo, surveying him with a certain distaste. "There are gypsies entering Paris, Torgo," he began, speaking in the smooth, commanding voice of Sir Tony Jay. "I want you to root out their hideaway and tell me where it is." To illustrate his point, he crunched a rabbit head beneath his foot, just like how in the movie he did that thing with the bugs under the rock when talking to someone else.

"Yes, Judge," said Torgo, wandering out the door. He didn't have his hand-headed walking stick yet, and instead dressed more in the manner of a Renaissance-era French aristocrat, even though that was anachronistic to the setting.

"Good luck, Torgo," said Frollo. He didn't like Torgo, and Torgo knew it, and Frollo knew that Torgo knew it, and Torgo knew that Frollo knew _that_, and Frollo mistakenly believed that Torgo knew that Frollo knew that Torgo knew that Frollo knew that Torgo knew. He (Torgo) was a satyr, of pre-Christian origin, and, what's more, he was hardly the modicum of civilized humanity. Also, he smelt like urine and spoke in annoyingly modulating tones. But he had one use, although Frollo hated to admit it: Torgo could gather information like nobody's business. His usual method was of the sort later popularized by James Bond, which is to say, giving away hot dickings to beautiful women until one of them gave him the information. He was pretty good at that, having stolen women away from Giacomo di Casanova, as many as three at a time. Torgo also had recently acquired his PhD at the Sorbonne in the discipline of Kicking Your Ass.

So Torgo sat down on a park bench, although Paris probably didn't have park benches yet, and he thought for a while. Where might the gypsies be? Whom to dick? What was a gypsy? He saw a beautiful aristocratic-looking woman walking by. She had golden, silken hair and inexplicably violet eyes, a slightly-dark complexion that hinted at the possibility of being half-gypsy (whatever that was), and was wearing something that looked suspiciously like an X-Men uniform, so was probably one of those "Mary Sues" that kept cropping up while he was working for The Judge. Considering how well-tuned to major events they were, this one probably knew all sorts of relevant mess.

Time to take matters into hand. He stood up, and shuffled over to her. "Hello, madam," said Torgo, and this alone was enough to make her swoon into his arms.

One hot dicking later, Torgo and Rosemarie Amorette Feuillette lay entwined in her silk-sheeted bower. Unbeknownst to Torgo, Rosemarie had been infatuated with Frollo for some time, despite his being a vicious and genocidal old man, but this has little to do with the matter at hand. Oh, and Quasimodo. She was in love with him, too. "I fear I have betrayed my heart," she said.

"That's great, madam. Where do the gypsies live?"

* * *

Sewers were gross. They still are, but they were much grosser back then, because they were basically just tunnels full of unprocessed human dump, whereas today, they are tunnels full of processed human dump, which is infinitely preferable. But they had those little walkway things along the side, so as Torgo wandered the sewer, he sang a song that hadn't been written yet, which was the popular thing to do these days. Had this been an Aardman movie, some amusing slugs would have sung along, but sadly, he had to make do with harmonizing rats. 

_We sail tonight for Singapore _

_We're all as mad as hatters here _

_I've fallen for a tawny moor _

_Took off to the land of Nod _

_Drank with all the Chinamen _

_Walked the sewers of Paris _

_I danced along a colo__u__red wind _

_And d__angled from a rope of sand _

_You must say goodbye to me_

Incidentally, "Chinamen" is no longer the preferred nomenclature, but back then, slavery was still happening, and the most hardcore of feminists would find Borat to be radical, so there was little time for political correctness.

Luckily, his singing did not attract the attention of the gypsy guards, because they were busy watching Esmeralda & Her Gypsy Matchbox B-Line Klezmer Conservatory Blues Explosion Choir Dancers perform Gold Digga, which also hadn't been written yet.

Eventually he came to a chamber in which sat an old woman who was knitting something. From the echoing corridors, however, it sounded like a bunch more people were headed this way, and maybe he could overhear a bit of extra information for The Judge. He snuck behind a barrel full of food, where he hid. Leading the group was a crazy guy in a purple and yellow jester suit. He was waving around a puppet that looked exactly like himself and swigging wine from a bottle. "Wheeeee!" shouted the man, as he stumbled around, bumping into people and groping the womenfolk. "I'm terribly, terribly drunk!" Only he said it in French.

Yeah, did I mention that, for the duration of this flashback, everyone, Torgo included, is speaking French? If I didn't, I'm doing it now: for the duration of this flashback, blah blah.

Then a beautiful woman appeared among the crowd. "Clopin, I think Judge Frollo is planning something against us."

Torgo grinned. She was right.

Clopin, if that was his name, sat down. "Esmera… Es… Emserella," he stammered, unable to pronounce her name, "tell me about it when I'm sober. I can't deal with intrigue and plot when I'm drunk."

"You're always drunk, Clopin," she said. Torgo treated himself to staring at her bottom.

"Well, that's true," admitted Clopin. "So what do you propose to do about Frollo?"

"We need to tighten security around here. Probably leave. We could go to Montreuil-sur-Mer. I'm told the mayor there is very nice, although there's supposed to be a particularly nasty cop who lives there. Oh, and prostitutes who sell their hair to buy medicine for their estranged daughters."

"How would we make a living there?" asked Clopin. "Would you become a prostitute? That sounds like a great idea."

"No," she said. "I'm saving myself for marriage, remember?"

"No," said Clopin. "I'm positive that guy Joe claimed that you weren't a virgin anymore."

"Joe tells lies," said Esmeralda. "And he doesn't even have a gypsy name. Hell, he doesn't even have a French name."

"There's a satyr hiding behind the barrel," said Joe, in a peculiarly high-pitched voice.

"Oh, hell," said Torgo.


	3. The Master Would Not Approve

Ahh, Chapter 3. When the story really begins to either pick up or get lost.

If you are reading this, I am probably already dead. 16 people die every second (it's probably gone up by the time you read this), and the odds that I'll be one of them increase every second as more and more of them die.

Nah.

The song Torgo sang in the last chapter was "Singapore" by Tom Waits, and I think I gave a shout out or two to bubblymuggle4's excellent pastiche, "MarieSue".

Now, let's conclude my brief Hunchback segue, and move on with the story.

* * *

"What the fuck are you doing?" screamed Esmeralda, who was surprisingly fouled mouthed when Disney wasn't present.

"I am spying on you!" announced Torgo, dramatically, like Tyrone Power might if he yelled more. "I shall now return to Notre Dame cathedral, where Judge Claude Frollo awaits, and I shall reveal all your plans and locations to him! By tonight, some French people will come down here and gut you all with bardiches. Bye now!" He leapt into action, and was fleeing down the corridor, but Esmeralda chased him.

"We need to have a round-table discussion," announced Clopin, so the rest of them stayed in that room. "We shall debate our options at great length. But first, the Gypsy Matchbox B-Line Klezmer Conservatory Blues Explosion Choir Dancers will perform a medley of Jimmy Buffet material."

"But Jimmy Buffet hasn't even been born yet," observed Joe.

"Shut the fuck up."

* * *

Esmeralda ran pretty fast, although Torgo knew a form of proto-Le Parkour, but he was allowing her to catch up just to see what she was going to do.

"Don't tell Frollo!" she shouted, which is surprising hard to do while running.

"I must, madam. I serve The Judge blindly. And I like the Archdeacon guy. He's cool, too."

"Stranger," she said, "is there any way I could persuade you not to tell Frollo?"

And thus transpired the most contrived reason for doing it in a sewer yet recorded, with the possible exception of _It_.

Oh, yeah, and _that's _the reason she refused to sleep with Phoebas. She didn't want him finding out that she had lain with a satyr. It had nothing to do with Gringoire.

* * *

The Archdeacon was a much nicer man than Frollo, even though in the book, he _was_ Frollo, so he was usually much nicer to Torgo. He was, after all, voiced by David Ogden Stiers, whose character in _Beauty and the Beast_ was much nicer than that played by Tony Jay. Or the character Tony Jay played in the other _Beauty and the Beast_, the one with Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton.

"What have you been off doing?" the Archdeacon asked, when Torgo came back into the cathedral.

"The Judge had me spying on gypsies, your Grace," he said. "But I couldn't find any."

"Oh, Monsieur Frollo will be so disappointed," said the Archbishop, sadly. "I'll have to bake him some cookies, or he'll be sulking all day."

"I will see you later, Your Grace. I'm off to go have a beer with Quasimodo."

Torgo enjoyed having beers with Quasimodo, because the hunchback was completely deaf from all the bell-ringing and, therefore, his voice sounded even funnier than Torgo's. Well, almost.

* * *

Torgo woke up now.

"That cap will have to hold you for now," said Eulenspiegel.

Torgo paid him, and they had coffee.

"Where are you headed next?"

"Valley Lodge, for a vacation," said Torgo.

"Are you in a hurry?" asked the Dutchman.

"Not terribly. Why?"

"Because there is a wizard with whom I can put you into contact. He may be able to restore your hand altogether."

"That would be good, sir. I thank you profusely."

Eulenspiegel rummaged in his bag for a moment, and then found a card, which he gave Torgo.

"Now, were I you, I would be careful around this man. He can help you, but he's very dangerous, and you do not want to make a bad impression."

The card contained a phone number, an address, and the words "The King".

The back had "Not the one in yellow" written on it.


End file.
